


Satellites

by ester_potter



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Temporarily Unrequited Love, Unhappy Ending, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:41:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26255818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ester_potter/pseuds/ester_potter
Summary: He hears them before Enjolras can even speak: - Grantaire, you are incapable of believing, of thinking, of willing, of living, and of dying.Of course it was him. It could only be him.Soulmate!AU where everyone has their soul mate's last words written somewhere on their body.
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 48





	Satellites

Grantaire is still just a baby when the Words appear on his arm.

He’s six when he starts practising and manages to read the whole sentence from the beginning to the end.

He’s fourteen when he starts hating them, because there’s no way that the last words your soul mate will tell you can be so disdainful, so _pitiful_.

He’s twenty-six when he meets Enjolras, and somehow he feels it in his bones that it’s him. Right after their first exchange of words at the Cafè Musain.

He can almost picture Enjolras as he pins him down to the table with one of his icy and at the same time burning stare and rubs his biggest weakness in his face.

He wonders how he will react when he hears it.

“It’s true, Apollo” he pictures himself saying. “I’m utterly incapable. I don’t know how to live, except for by your side. Even if you don’t want me, I’ll be there. I don’t believe the people will join us, I don’t believe in the utopia for which you’re willing to die and I don’t believe it’s even worth dying for. But I believe you, in you, for you. Ask me, and I’ll die for you”

But it doesn’t matter. Whatever he is going to say, they’d be dead soon and that would be the last accusation coming from the love of his life, his soul mate. And the more time goes by, the more this last awareness takes shape.

He’s twenty-nine and their time has come: they are really going to die, but it’s like none of them cares. They’re scared, but they all go on like machines. It’s collective madness, and the only thing that keeps him there is Enjolras. But he can’t change, he can’t keep quiet, he keeps filling himself with beer and absinthe and talks, yells, laughs, and Enjolras bursts.

He’s too beside himself to make out everything he’s telling him, but he catches something. Don’t disgrace the barricade, go get rid of the fumes of your wine somewhere else.

With his eyes foggy from the alcohol, Grantaire struggles to look up and in the buzz he only sees Enjolras.

“I love you” he thinks but doesn’t say it. It’s not the right time, not the right _life_ , and he prefers unleashing his tongue. He doesn’t hold it back as it moves by its own volition and covers him in shame once again:

-Let me sleep here.

-Go sleep elsewhere!

-Let me sleep here, until I die.

He hears them before Enjolras can even speak: - Grantaire, you are incapable of believing, of thinking, of willing, of living, and of dying.

Of course it was him. It could only be him. And Grantaire, annihilated by alcohol and by himself, can only mumble. – You will see.

Then he speaks again, and it’s crazy just how everything’s so crystal-clear in his mind and yet he can’t even understand himself; he’s grumbling, but it’s all too blurred and confused and none of his friends can hear him. And even if they did, they wouldn’t listen anymore.

His head falls back on the table and so does Grantaire in the drunken dark.

He’s tired when the soldiers position themselves before him. He’s disappointed, because the people didn’t rise.

But he’s not afraid.

He was born for this and he’ll die for this.

He has always known that this is his destiny and he accepts it.

He refuses the bandage and prepares himself to go with everything he believes in, no regrets.

- _Vive la République_! I’m one of them.

The Words always played a marginal role throughout Enjolras’ life; since he was a kid he had been cynical enough to not linger on them too much, and his indifference all but grew as he got older and found his purpose and reason for living in a free, republican France and committed night and day to that aim.

But now, seeing Grantaire – still drunk and stumbling, but confident – striding towards him with that yell, his first thought are the Words.

It’s absurd, unimaginable, since they’re pretty much each other’s obverse and reverse opposite and complementary. “Or maybe that’s the reason” he thinks.

And then it’s hilarious, when he realizes his soul mate was always right under his nose, and he never thought for a second it could be him. “It was you… It was always you”

And finally it’s sad, since he knows Grantaire’s only doing this for him: he never hid his doubts about Enjolras’ ideas, mocking him even. How he’s coming to him, he’s coming to die _for_ him, and Enjolras can’t help but hate himself for all the time he’s lost, for the way he treated him.

He forgets about the revolution, about his friends and companions, about the soldiers surrounding him as he keeps his eyes on Grantaire.

-Finish both of us at one blow – he says. To Enjolras’ ears, he never sounded more staunch, more resolute.

-Do you permet it?

This is it.

He said it, and it’s like seeing him for the first time. Among all the things he thought the Words could refer to, he had never thought about death.

Will you let me die with you?

Will you let me stand by you?

Will you let me follow you?

Enjolras smiles to him instinctively – perhaps for the first time – and he holds his hand, for any other would be unnecessary, like a blinding light pouring on an image that’s already clear, defined, perfect like a divine picture.

He has always denied him everything, but he won’t deny him this last act.

And may they rest together forever, united as one, as it should have been from the start.

Like two sides of the same coin.

Like soul mates.

**Author's Note:**

> My first Enjoltaire fic after 5 years in the fandom of Les Mis.  
> I know, I suck.


End file.
